The present invention relates to a resin-based liquid crystal cell substrate which has a polarizing function, is excellent in heat resistance, moisture resistance, gas barrier properties, durability, etc., can be extremely thin and lightweight, and is suitable for user in fabricating liquid crystal displays.
Conventional liquid crystal cells having a polarizing function employ a cell substrate having bonded thereto a polarizing plate. It has been proposed to use in this cell substrate a resin substrate capable of being extremely thin and lightweight in place of glass substrates, which are heavy and fragile, so as to cope with the trend toward display size increase. However, the proposed resin substrate has had problems that it cannot be sufficiently reduced in weight and thickness because the conventional polarizing plate has a five-layer structure formed by bonding a transparent protective film to each side of a polarizer through an adhesive layer and hence has a total thickness of generally 100 xcexcm or larger, and that the resin substrate is difficult to use at a temperature of 100xc2x0 C. or higher because the polarizing plate has insufficient heat resistance.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a liquid crystal cell substrate which has a polarizing function, can be extremely thin and lightweight, and is excellent in heat resistance, impact resistance, and quality stability.
The present invention provides a liquid crystal cell substrate comprising a resin substrate and, closely adhered thereon, a gas barrier layer, a crosslinked resin layer, and a polarizing layer, wherein the polarizing layer comprises a coating layer.
According to the present invention, a liquid crystal cell substrate having a polarizing function and high durability can be efficiently produced because an exceedingly thin polarizing layer having excellent heat resistance can be deposited on a resin substrate by coating and because a gas barrier layer and a crosslinked resin layer also can be easily formed. It is excellent in moisture resistance, gas resistance, and impact resistance, can be extremely thin and lightweight, and has excellent heat resistance. With this liquid crystal cell substrate, a liquid crystal cell excellent in the long-term stability of display quality can be fabricated.